The Groton-Dunstable Regional School District has utilized the Seesaw software platform as a powerful educational tool for the past five years, particularly for PreK through first-grade students. This innovative platform has become essential to our district’s early education support, providing a robust and dynamic environment to capture digital learning.
Supplementing Core Curriculum and Beyond
Seesaw’s extensive library offers many lessons to support core instruction, acceleration, remediation, and differentiated learning. These ready-to-teach lessons, often modified by teachers, are crafted using Seesaw’s engaging multimodal learning tools, enabling educators to deliver evidence-based, standards-aligned instruction that meets the needs of every student. Our Technology & Digital Learning Department has uploaded the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks into Seesaw to enhance instructional alignment further, ensuring that lesson plans are directly tied to state standards.
Florence Roche Elementary teacher Mrs. Claire Gribi, a proud Seesaw Ambassador, enjoys sharing the latest software updates with her fellow first-grade teachers and actively implements them in her classroom. Mrs. Gribi shared, “Seesaw allows students to access the curriculum in many ways. It enables students to truly show what they know by using images, drawings, text, video, and voice recordings.” Gribi, who has been at Florence Roiche for eight years, continued, “Seeing my students' thought processes makes it possible for me to meet them where they are and provide interventions or further practice through individualized assignments based on what I saw in their posts.”
Digital Portfolios: Tracking Growth and Fostering Reflection
One of Seesaw’s standout features is its digital portfolios, which allow educators to track student growth yearly. These portfolios can capture any student's work, whether a Seesaw activity or not and offer a unique opportunity for students to reflect on their learning journey. Portfolios are a powerful tool for demonstrating proficiency beyond traditional assessments, making them invaluable for IEP/504 documentation and parent-teacher conferences.
Teachers can provide timely, specific feedback on student work within digital portfolios. This immediate feedback loop allows students to make revisions and improvements continuously and in real-time while it still has meaning to the student. It promotes a growth mindset and encourages flexible and deeper learning. Digital portfolios help students develop critical skills such as self-reflection, goal setting, and digital literacy. They learn to plan and prioritize steps to meet an end task, reflect on their progress, and present it in a digital format, all of which are valuable skills in the modern world.
A veteran of the Florence Roche Elementary School for 20 years, first-grade teacher Mrs. Anne Marie Lancotot loves the home-school connection made available by the student portfolios. Mrs. Lanctot stated, “Parents can access their child’s digital portfolio to see their work and progress directly. This transparency helps parents understand what their child is learning and how they perform. It shifts parent-teacher communication from occasional updates to a more continuous dialogue about the child’s development.” Mrs. Lanctot added, “Digital portfolios provide a platform to monitor progress toward these goals and celebrate achievements, fostering a supportive learning environment at home and school.”
Empowering Joyful and Creative Learning
Seesaw’s award-winning multimodal tools create joyful learning experiences that encourage creative expression and allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in diverse ways. With various activity options, students of all ages and abilities can collaborate with peers, build and reflect on their knowledge, and share their work meaningfully. This flexibility and creativity are at the heart of what makes Seesaw an essential tool in the Groton-Dunstable Regional School District at the pre-school through first-grade levels.
As Seesaw Ambassadors, Mrs. Gribi and Mrs. Lanctot have earned their badges through increased professional development and dedicated efforts to maximize the platform's benefits for their students. Their expertise and commitment ensure that Seesaw continues to be an excellent learning tool, supporting our educational practices and their students' growth and success.
